


A Temptation Averted

by Sylphidine_Gallimaufry



Category: Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Ask Pitch's Wardrobe, Comfort Reading, Guardian of Childhood Pitch Black, Jack Frost is a biblioholic, M/M, Reading Aloud, The Lair has a mind of its own, Wardrobeverse, bibliophilia is serious business, reading in bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 07:36:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15552798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylphidine_Gallimaufry/pseuds/Sylphidine_Gallimaufry
Summary: Blackice fic based on the prompt “ Person A is in bed reading a book. Person B enters and climbs into bed with them. Without looking up person A raises their arm so that person B can crawl under and snuggle up with them. Person B falls asleep. “





	A Temptation Averted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [miss_evening](https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_evening/gifts).



> An itty bitty bit of meta and a whole LOTTA fluph. Set in my Guardian!Pitch AU, in the same timeline as [All Hallows Eels.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5115563)

The fairylights were a nice touch, Jack had to admit.  Twisted and twined around the blackwood columns of the four-poster bed, they gave an extra sparkle to the ice and frost he’d embedded in the elaborate carvings on the bedposts..

The pretty effect made Pitch’s shark-toothed grin, when he brought the string of lights home, a fully justified one.

This was their new bed, their “book at bedtime” bed; the Lair had manifested this bedroom, fully furnished with bookcases, end tables, reading lamps, and a sinister-looking armoire with half-moon cutouts in each door, a few weeks after Jack had repeatedly fallen asleep on the couch in Pitch’s library with a book on his chest.

Pitch had explained, when Jack first moved in, that the Lair would manifest new rooms and hide or eliminate old ones from time to time; it was sensitive to the moods of those who lived in it.  It also manifested items at will in those rooms, albeit not immediately.  It seemed to relish taking the slow path in regards to its magic.  Perfectly understandable in the case of serving the needs and wants of an aeons-old spirit, but a bit frustrating to a “gotta-have-it-now” guy like Jack.

The frost sprite wondered how far back, and why, it had manifested the Snuggery, a room filled with nothing but huge blankets and multitudinous pillows and cushions, enough to make the best couch forts ever.  He wasn’t complaining, mind you, but he did have to laugh at the thought of Pitch taking power naps in an enormous cat bed.  Spooky, scary Nightmare King with a marshmallow centre.

On the other hand, the diabolical dentistry dungeon… the less thought about, the better.

Pitch’s old bedroom, with its spartan bedframe and ridiculously hard mattress, had been abandoned once he and Jack had started the physical side of their relationship.  They both enjoyed this one a lot more, for sex, for sleeping, and for reading aloud to one another.

It was June, and Jack had spent the last week in Chile, overseeing some Andean snow and playing with kids whose parents were serious skiers.  The Lair had access points all over the world, and those access points were open to Jack now as well as to Pitch.  

Jack hitched himself up on the black overstuffed backrest, sliding a bit on the black satin sheets.  He was tired, but hoped that Pitch would return soon from his rounds of herding Nightmares.  They were in the midst of reading a book series together, a septology dealing with literary figures who were called upon to become Caretakers of a place called the Archipelago of Dreams.  The elder spirit and the younger had both found themselves thoroughly absorbed as chapter after chapter developed its twists and turns, and had both hated to pause and return to their various duties as Guardians.

In the latest book, they’d just been introduced to a new Caretaker named Lloyd, described as a long-shanked knave with a mighty nose; Jack had smiled at that passage, so reminiscent of his lanky lover.  Pitch had merely snorted.

Jack’s fingers fairly itched to just sneak a peek at an upcoming chapter, or to flip through the extraordinary illustrations, but that would be cheating Pitch out of the pleasure of mutual discovery of the unfolding tale.  The Guardian of Fun consoled himself by imagining the Guardian of Caution as one of the Caretakers, an archivist of sorts who collected horror stories.

Sighing, Jack picked up a different book, one that he and Pitch had read before - THE TOWER GANG by Theseus Jones.  He soon got lost in the witty banter of famous people who were badly mismatched housemates in the Afterlife, and kept turning pages without any sense of time going by.

====================

Shadows curled and writhed in the corner of the room housing the warped black armoire.  An oily fog began to ooze and drift across the floor towards the bed.

On the other side of the room, a disembodied pair of silver-gold eyes opened and glared.  With a sniff of irritation, the oily fog retreated back into the wardrobe and closed the door.

The owner of the silver-gold eyes wrapped shadows around himself, coalesced into solidity, and sighed.  Stars and moons, he was tired.  He looked fondly over at the spiky thatch of white hair bent over the book perched on knees drawn up under the bedclothes.

It was so good to be home.

It was so good to have Jack to come home to.

Pitch made his way over to the bed, intending to crawl in without fanfare.  He was therefore startled and gave out an undignified squawk when, in one fluid sequence, Jack lifted one arm away from his book, looped it around the Boogeyman’s torso, hauled him up onto the mattress, onto his blue-hoodied chest and against his bony blue-hoodied shoulder, and dropped his arm back down to hold Pitch snugly in place, seemingly without a single break in concentration.

The dark Guardian grinned quietly, and his chuckle turned into a yawn.  He closed his eyes and drifted into slumber to the soft susurrus of turning pages.

**Author's Note:**

> 1] I am still working my own way through rereading the [septology](http://jamesaowen.com/books-and-publications/the-chronicles-of-the-imaginarium-geographica/) that Pitch and Jack are reading, so I cannot remember if Lloyd Alexander is actually a Caretaker, or if I only projected it as wish-fulfillment, coupled with the irresistible opportunity to throw in a DOCTOR WHO quote, through conversations with the author of the series, whom I count as a dear friend. I hope James will forgive me the insertion in the spirit in which it was meant. Lloyd is to me whom Ray Bradbury was to James.
> 
> 2] The septology is truly gloriously illustrated, albeit in pen-and-ink rather than the paintings and pencil sketches of William Joyce in the GUARDIANS books, but both _ouevres_ give me the same happy feeling to look upon.
> 
> 3] The book Jack is reading, as he resists the temptation to read ahead in the septology, is by a different author, whose name is **_NOT_** Theseus Jones, but is AWFULLY close to it, who also is a dear friend of mine. The book is not yet in print and will have a slightly different title, and I am proud to have been there at its inception on Livejournal.


End file.
